As the week began, Cardano performed an important hard fork named Chang, which made this blockchain more decentralized, allowing users to take a bigger part in the decision-making processes.
Besides, being so proud of the progress Cardano has made in the last ten years, its founder Charles Hoskinson made several critiques about the largest cryptocurrency – Bitcoin, saying that the crypto space basically does not need BTC any longer.
How Cardano initially came to exist
Cardano was created in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson, who prior to that took an active part in founding Ethereum but later on dropped out of the developer team. By creating his own blockchain, Hoskinson wanted to tackle the drawbacks he saw in Ethereum and Bitcoin, in particular related to scalability, sustainability, and interoperability.
Cardano’s creation was coordinated by three entities: IOHK (now rebranded as IOG – Input Output Global), the Cardano Foundation, and EMURGO. IOHK spearheaded by Hoskinson was in charge of the technical Cardano development. The Cardano Foundation led the promotion campaign and focused on creating the Cardano ecosystem. EMURGO’s goal was to drive Cardano adoption in the world of business.
The official launch took place two years after the platform was developed – in 2017. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other early cryptocurrencies, Cardano ran on the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, while Bitcoin and Ethereum were based on the Proof-of-Work protocol. PoS was a lot more scalable and energy-saving unlike PoW.
There have been several phases in Cardano’s development, each of them focusing on a particular aspect of the network’s capabilities. The very first phase was called Byron and it was designed to focus on the basic functions of Cardano – in particular, ADA transactions. Byron was followed by the introduction of Shelley in 2020. Shelley introduced staking and delegation, which enabled ADA holders to partake in securing the blockchain and earning crypto rewards for that.
After Shelley, came the Goguen phase and with it arrived smart contracts, which allowed developers to start building decentralized financial applications (dapps) on the Cardano blockchain.
Cardano became widely adopted and recognized in the crypto community thanks to its focus on quality, as well as its emphasis on formal verification and high-assurance code. Thanks to those Cardano was frequently chosen by financial services and supply chain management companies, since they require robust security and a high level of reliability.
Now that the Chang hard fork has been implemented, Cardano has begun transitioning into the next phase – Voltaire.
Recent Chang upgrade on Cardano
The Chang hard fork marks a significant milestone for the whole Cardano network. This upgrade was made to boost the network’s decentralized governance model. Now ADA holders have the full power to take part in the process of decision making and vote on solutions suggested by the developer team. In particular, Chang also allows for a temporary governance structure titled the Interim Cardano Constitution. Eventually, it is intended to lead the network to governance fully driven by the community.
However, surprisingly, the ADA price reaction was not as positive as many expected it to be. ADA has dropped by approximately 3%, showing that the market chose to follow the “sell-the-news” scenario. While Chang was vitally important for Cardano’s long-term development, it has not so far had any immediate positive effect on the ADA price performance.
Hoskinson bashes Bitcoin, praising Cardano
The hard fork was made several days ago. Charles Hoskinson boasted in a tweet that he had been working on Cardano for a decade now and he was glad to see the enthusiasm of the ADA community when the upgrade took place. Now, he said, Cardano functions as a fully distributed system in more than 100 countries. It has never shut down, nor does it have any central coordination, the upgrade took place for millions of people around the world.
In recent interviews and X posts, Hoskinson said that Cardano now surpasses Bitcoin and that Cardano’s history and its milestones will one day be reflected in books. Curiously, Hoskinson slammed Bitcoin, likening it to a religion rather than a blockchain network. He also stated that while Bitcoin needs the cryptocurrency industry to survive, the industry itself does not need Bitcoin any longer. He said that he does not see how Bitcoin can survive and enter the future. Here he compared Bitcoin and Cardano to desktop computers which are much less popular now because people are widely using smartphones and tablets.
Unlike Bitcoin, he said, Cardano now is “a governance virus that is living, self-replicating, and self-sustaining. Nothing can shut it down. Nothing can stop its growth.”
